According to the FBI and other US intelligence services, the Iranian government is responsible for the hack and leak operation that targeted the Trump presidential campaign and even tried to target the Biden-Harris campaign on Monday.
Following news outlets receiving papers thought to have originated from an account associated with a key Trump campaign official, the FBI recently apprised the former president of their initial conclusions. According to Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, the hackers were unable to breach the Biden-Harris campaign.
United States authorities see the inquiry as the most direct evidence of Iran’s (and other countries’) attempts to influence the 2024 election.
The intelligence community is certain that Iran has attempted, via social engineering and other means, to get in touch with those who have direct influence over the presidential campaigns of the two major parties. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a joint statement on Monday, stating that their goal was to influence the US election process by actions such as theft and disclosure.
This strategy is not new, and it is an essential point to remember. “These tactics have been used by Iran and Russia in other countries around the world, including the United States, during this and previous federal election cycles,” the statement continued.
Rejecting “unsubstantiated” accusations that its government was involved in the hack and leak operation, Iran’s UN mission spoke out against them on Monday.
“Such allegations are unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing,” the Iranian Permanent Mission to the United Nations stated in a statement to AWN. There is zero desire or intent on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran to tamper with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We will respond appropriately if the United States government provides us with the relevant proof, if any, if it truly believes its assertions are valid.
The aggressiveness with which Iran attempted to influence the 2020 election, even going so far as to intimidate election officials, caught some US officials unaware. Both current and past US officials have stated that, although the element of surprise may have faded after four years, Iran still shows no signs of being eager to attempt to sow electoral upheaval.
According to AWN’s previous reporting, investigators in the current hacking operation believe that in June, suspected Iranian hackers gained access to the personal email account of Roger Stone, a longtime Trump supporter and political operative. They then attempted to gain access to the account of a senior Trump campaign official using that compromised account.
Politico was the first to announce that an AOL account under the alias “Robert” had published internal Trump campaign information to media outlets, adding to the hacked documents. According to Politico, one of the files contained information about JD Vance, who was running for vice president with Trump.
According to sources, in order to discover the identity of the hacker or hackers and the source of the leak, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has consulted with Trump campaign staff and reviewed email records supplied by Google, Microsoft, and AOL.
It was easy to pin the breach on a specific organization with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) because their methods were identical to the hackers’.
Two sources familiar with the situation said that some US officials were unsure that the hacking and document-leaking had been carried out by the same IRGC-backed outfit. But according to one of the individuals, the AOL account’s digital infrastructure has been connected to the same Iranian hacking gang by investigators.
Someone with knowledge of the correspondence between “Robert” and reporters via email claims that whomever was behind the account had a hard time understanding the language and tried to persuade a journalist to release additional documents.
Last week, Google researchers revealed that Iranian hackers had also compromised the email accounts of sitting US senators, representatives, and staff members linked to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
According to sources familiar with the situation, the FBI informed Trump that the hacking effort appears to have been carried out by Iranians. The hackers were successful in breaching Stone’s email accounts. “It looks like it’s Iran,” Trump officially stated last week, adding that the FBI was investigating the breach.